Strategic planning plays a crucial role in strategic management. It enables corporations to determine and achieve short- to long-term business goals which deliver anticipated results. Not only does it require establishing objectives and monitoring their respective outcomes, but it also revolves around budgeting as a critical component of strategic planning. Financial resources need to be optimally allocated to reach organization’s desirable results, address challenges and take advantage of opportunities that come along the way. 

 Identifying tangible strategy plan, however, might be a challenging task due to uncertainty on the market. Economic fluctuations, changing polices and many other variables make the market volatility and complexity more significant. Companies need to constantly monitor the current situation and determine whether they need to adjust their strategy. Effective corporations need ability to quickly reallocate their financial resources to areas with higher-value opportunities. This requires flexibility which is missing among majority of organizations around the world. According to Anaplan’s research, only 15% of companies reach all of their anticipated objectives. With current development of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) tools, executives should seek change-adaptable solutions. Implementing Connected planning process into your organization can help you increase that flexibility. 

Connected planning replaces inflexible and error-prone spreadsheets with synchronized platform that connects departments, data and plans across the company. It further complements strategic planning as executives get instant overview of the current situation. This helps them make quicker and more informed decisions which may result in adjustments to the initial strategic plan. Such adjustments will be immediately seen by all the business units as all the information flows through one common platform, enabling teams to respond quickly to the new decisions.  

In addition, EPM tools offer effective and quick data integration of different parts of the organization. Any changes in sells, savings etc. will be immediately reflected on the platform. Business leaders can use scenario analysis capabilities of EPM solutions to design and analyze new scenarios with various assumptions relevant for the current situation.  

At Sonum, we are passionate about helping companies execute their strategic planning and, as result, achieve their anticipated goals. We create truly value adding planning and budgeting solutions by:  

• Replacing manual and inflexible planning with dynamic, connected and less-error prone planning processes. 
• Increasing flexibility by implementing self-managed solutions, that can be easily adjusted by business users to the current situation. 
• Quick and effective implementation as result of cloud-based solution without having to install software on every device. 

If you would like to learn more how Sonum can improve your strategic planning capabilities, get in touch with us for a free consultation!